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Clients from hell. Their demands. Comments. Pitches. And all awkward emails and moments
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Part 1: It's wild how the animation industry can send you soaring, only to let you crash. After dedicating over a decade to Animation/VFX, I took the leap and started my own studio. One of our fi… more

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Is there a place besides here to post good or bad about experiences with clients? My current client is an absolute nightmare and is apparently notorious for being this way. I’d like to warn others bec… more

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Client hasn’t paid our fees since December last year. We found out they’re talking to another agency for some “strategic work” - I also know that they owe the media agency in the 7 figures neighborhoo… more

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Right wing Christian client told us to edit a photo of a woman in a magazine feature because she was wearing a dress.

She was also in a wheelchair.

The verbatim quote was “cut off her legs”.

likefunny

Years ago at another agency I owned, a national CPG client brought on a new president shortly after we were awarded the business with the contract signed. He didn't like being on a monthly retainer and wanted… more

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“I have 3 key priorities on my roadmap that are critical path efforts for the back half of the year, we need to focus.” A day later, “Here’s 10 unassociated random tasks I need you to jump on immediat… more

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I have a client that is notorious for overly creative directing things - going so far as to being prescriptive on where move design elements, imagery, and copy blocks, providing verbatim copy… Any tip… more

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Eleven years ago today I was pitching a radio spot to be read by Bootsy Collins. Client said “well…that was certainly…urban”. What are some of your client feedback stories?

Post Photo
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How would you all handle working on a client that your agency works for but it believes and promotes things that go against what you (and against today’s cultural climate) believes in?

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Not a bad client, but bad manager. What is the best way to talk about the fact that I was only at my previous company for six months (not publicis) due to the fact that my boss was fired for harassmen… more

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Truly need clients to understand that the creative process while magical does not happen overnight. No matter how many times I offer documentation ( a deck) live conversation (1:1) or expert opinion (… more

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Has anyone filed an HR complaint about their client? The business I work on is notorious for bad client behavior, and we work with a ton of partners who have filed complaints but no one at my company … more

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For an existing client, I negotiated a project fee rather than going W2, half up front, half upon completion, on a 30-day bid. At both milestones, the client repeatedly kicked-back my invoices for addition… more

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A few years ago I had a client stiff me for $10000… he paid me through PayPal, then fcuked me over with a bank chargeback that tanked my PayPal account to negative $10000 and ran. I never touched the PayPal since then, so I … more

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We are here to guide clients: but this is not always the case when your client believes they are the target audience for their product. How do you convince them that they are not and trust the agency?

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So client gives feedback: I am sure i like it its very vanilla! I am struggling not sure what it is but i am struggling.
How do you even begin?

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Is there a correlation between bad clients and agencies?

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🤝 Pay it Forward:

Drop a piece of advice or wisdom that has seriously helped you in Life or Career [or dealing with BAD CLIENTS...]!

Help another user and pay it forward. 👇

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I once had a client react to a radio script that i was trying to sell through having Bootsy Collins as the VO. Her response was “well…that was certainly…urban”

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Best zoom mishap stories?

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What is your funniest client story? Need a laugh.

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Client once said we can’t use any spokespeople or even attribute blogs to a specific person because “what if they turn out like Jared at Subway?”

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Any client where the lead contact is named Doreen.

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T-Mobile. That is all.

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is it just me or does every job this month have 22 versions with 180 deliverables and they’re expected to deliver in 2 days. What is happening?

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How bad are your videogame clients and why is Ubisoft the worst?

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😑 Please, tell me a time when you made a small mistake and a client totally overreacted to help me feel better. I’ve had a god awful week and I’m just crushed.

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Does anyone else have a client that just refuses to open attached files? And then gets angry that they aren’t understanding...

Oh just me...

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First week on the job, I grew up overseas and thus have an accent.

While on my first client call with roughly 20 team members in the call

Client: wow your accent, hold on a second I'm going to record you speaki… more

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So I have a client who incessantly texts me after the course of a “normal” business day at home nearly until 11:00 PM nightly. They happen to be in the same time zone FYI. Certainly has crossed the bo… more

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On the initial call: I want to go over some reasons I typically see marketing fail. You'd be surprised how many clients won't return a phone call for 4 months and then call me to complain nothing's working."

more

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Say you had a client that pulled all programs, refused to adhere to the contracted notice period and stopped paying bills at the start of the pandemic. And they still owe the agency a lot of money, wi… more

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Me: we can’t X because Y
Client: why can’t we X when others have done Z??
Me: ...because Y
Client: BUT WHY CAN’T WE X??!? :(

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"Didn't you know the MTA's signature smell is homeless people?" - "small talk" ahead of a client presentation by an SVP on their side.... am extremely relieved that nobody … more

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Have you ever received an email from a client that seemed outrageously long? I was curious how much time they spent on this email so I threw it into Google Docs to discover this email is 27 pages and … more

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Video game clients are the worst. They just want to show game footage.

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Any clients asking for VR ideas lately? Those were the days.

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So, ever had a colleague who almost got fired turn up as a "consultant" on ther client side? This one is awful, just truly not a nice person plus definitely has a score to settle.

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Let's talk about clients who whitewash casting. Every. Fucking. Time. I've started putting together a list of words used by clients to choose whiter cast members. The most recent was our PoC l… more

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Had a client's client kill some TV spots. Apparently there is no room for comedy and satire in these uncertain times. People need to laugh!

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